The Swiss town of Biel has
for 41 years hosted one of the world's great chess festivals. Hosted
in the giant Palais de Congress , walking distance from beautiful Lake
Biel, the summer Festival has always been the antithesis of the
January chess festival at the wet, windy, freezing Dutch seaside village
of Wijk aan Zee.

The Biel festival's main
event has always been a high level tournament, usually a round-robin
Grandmaster tournament, though Biel has thrice - in 1976, 1985 and
1993 - hosted World Championship Interzonal tournaments.

The Biel Chess Festival of
2008 is much smaller than in its 1980s and 1990s heyday. Now there is
competition from many places, especially the giant games festival in
Pardubice and the rapid/Chess 960 extravaganza in Mainz. To add to Biel's
problems, FIDE scheduled its Sochi Grand Prix tournament against Biel,
making many top players unavailable. Morozevich, who with Karpov holds
a record three Biel wins, would have returned this year but for the
Mainz clash.

Dozens of world class players
- from Tal and Smyslov to Anand and Carlsen - have competed in Biel
- but not all players' memories are sweet; Anand lost a 6-move game
here in 1988 while Korchnoi walked into a one-move checkmate two minutes
after resuming an adjourned game in 1986.

However for Magnus Carlsen,
the 17-year-old bidding to overtake Anand at the top of the world rankings,
Biel has only positive associations.

So far in Biel 2008, Carlsen
has looked exceptionally relaxed. Unusually, he did not travel to Biel
with his father but instead came with friends his own age, chessplayers
of decidedly modest strength. After his games, Carlsen can often be
seen in the public analysis area analysing his friends' games amidst
many smiles and much laughter. The teenage superstar is left in peace
to enjoy his spare time - a far cry from cities like Wijk aan Zee
or Morelia where Carlsen can hardly appear in public without being swamped
by fans or media.

The Swiss media do of course make their demands of Carlsen. After his second win over Pelletier he completed a 45 minute interview with local, national and international media. Carlsen handled all questions with good grace, including a off-the-wall "Do you fear ending up like Bobby Fischer?" and the personal "How much money do you earn?" and "Do you have a girlfriend?"

Magnus Carlsen analyzes, Photo Cathy Rogers

Rather fruitless debate has
raged over whether Biel deserves to call itself a super-tournament.
Alex Onischuk considers that "Last year was definitely a super-tournament.
This year it's almost a super-tournament!"

Yet appearances can be deceptive.
Biel 2007 was a lower category than 2008 but with 10 players rather
than 6, and with big names like Radjabov and Grischuk, it felt more
like the traditional super-tournament.

Onischuk also had an explanation
for why Biel might be downgraded in some people's eyes: "People
haven't yet got used to seeing Magnus as a really top player, like
Anand or Topalov."

Admittedly, Carlsen has not
looked like a world number one so far in the first half of the tournament,
notwithstanding the fact that he is tied for first with Evgeny Alekseev.

Both of Carlsen's wins have
come from persistence rather than dominance, beating only the two tailenders,
Bacrot and Pelletier. If he is to reach the world number one position
by the end of this tournament, Carlsen will need a 4/5 finish - possible
but extremely difficult, especially with the Black piece three times
in the final five games.

Carlsen has already had two
strokes of luck. In the first round he was the recipient of a half point
donation by the local hope Yannick Pelletier, one of the stars of Biel
2007. That game gave Carlsen a boost and began the psychological
destruction of Pelletier.

Positon after 42.Kf3

Pelletier had been defending
patiently against Carlsen's optimistic winning attempts and now finds
the simplest way to force a draw; exchanging to a pure opposite coloured
bishops endgame.

The start of a crazy manouevre
which only succeeds in totally immobilising Black's bishop on a5.
After the game Pelletier showed that 49...Ke7 50.Bg8 Bd4! would lead
to a simple draw, e.g. 51.b4 (A normal plan like 51.Kc4 Bf2 52.Kb5 leads
directly to a draw after 52...Kd6 and 53...Kc7.) 51...Bf2! 52.a5 cxb4
53.a6 b5 and the rest is easy for Black.

50.Bd5 Ba3?

The final error. There was
still time for 50...Ke7! 51.Kc4 Bd4! 52.Kb5 (52.b4 Bf2 53.bxc5!? Bxc5
54.a5 Kd6! could even lose after 55.a6? b5+ 56.Kxb5 Kxd5 57.g4 fxg4
58.f5 Bf2 -+) 52...Kd6 53.Bf7 Kc7 54.Bxg6 Bf2 55.Bxf5 Bxg3 and White
will have only one pawn left on the kingside - not enough to win.

51.Kc4 Bb4 52.Kb5 Ba5
53.Bc4 Ke7 54.Kc6 Kf6 55.Bd3

Now Black has run out of moves
and must allow a kingside breakthrough.

It was necessary to keep the
rooks on with 31.Bxb7 after which Pelletier considered White's position
to be winning. Now Dominguez escapes with a freakish draw - thanks
to Pelletier's nemesis, opposite coloured bishops.

The impact of these two games
has been plain to see - Pelletier has not troubled the scorers since
round 2.

Carlsen had his second piece
of good fortune in round 2 when he somehow did not injure himself severely
falling from the stage when the top games were being played. Engrossed
in his thoughts, Carlsen took a short-cut and plummeted onto the area
where the Open games were in progress.

However, showing the aplomb
of a Olympic gymnast whose attempted vault has just gone awry, Carlsen
picked himself, dusted himself down, and earned an easy draw with Black
against Alekseev.

In future Carlsen displayed
due caution and took the stairs from the stage when he wished to watch
the Open tournament.

Onischuk is coming off two
disappointing recent results, in Foros and Poikovsky, but he feels
that he showed glimpses of improved form in Poikovsky which he has taken
into Biel.

"Overall I didn't win any
and I lost six games," said Onischuk. "But both events were really
strong. In Foros I was not in my best form but in Poikovsky I played
OK but still scored minus two. What to do? However I feel like I got
my form back in Poikovsky."

"Now I am a little bit tired,
of course, but I always like to play here [in Biel]. I think this is
my fifth time here and only the first time I didn't do so well. I
like the idea of a chess festival. In the Ukraine they like chess but
there were still not many spectators at Foros. Here there are always
many people watching the games."

Whether Onischuk can repeat
his 2007 success in Biel probably depends upon his key final round game
with Black against Carlsen. Life
in a super-tournament, even a friendly one, was not meant to be easy.